


Drunk Talk

by intothecest



Category: Gravity Falls, pinecest - Fandom
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Denial of Feelings, Drunken Confessions, Drunkenness, F/M, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, Mutual Pining, No Sex, Unresolved Romantic Tension, pinecest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-27 07:46:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14420808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intothecest/pseuds/intothecest
Summary: When Mabel calls her brother Dipper, drunk and in need of a ride, he rushes to pick her up... but alcohol can loosen lips, and Mabel might say a little more than she intends.  But it's just Drunk Talk, right?





	Drunk Talk

Dipper’s fingers tapped out an impatient rhythm against the steering wheel, a pulse that seemed to match his own racing heart. _She’ll be okay,_ he told himself. _She’s smart. She’s tough, she’s faced gnomes and Gremoblins and other monsters. Piedmont’s one of the safest communities in the state. I’ve got nothing to worry about._

And yet he worried. Ever since he got that phone call he did nothing but worry, even though it was stupid. He knew he’d worry until he saw for sure that Mabel was okay.

His foot slammed on the brakes, as he realized a light he wasn’t watching had long ago red, right before he was about to cross. When he noticed, he’d had to fight back the urge to just run it. But what if he got in an accident, or got pulled over by the cops? He’d be no good to his sister then, and there’d be no chance of covering it up for Mom and Dad. 

As Dipper waited the seeming eternity for the light to change back to green, he stared at himself in the mirror, and then angrily tore off the stupid hat work made him wear and tossed it out the open window. _Let them charge me for it,_ he thought. It wasn’t like he needed it any more anyway. If he wasn’t already officially fired for walking out in the middle of his shift, it was because his manager wanted the chance to do it to his face the next time he showed up. The job sucked anyway, although if it wasn’t for Mabel’s call, he would have stuck with it. 

He groped around in the back seat, found his old cap with the blue pine tree symbol, and settled it back in its familiar spot on his head just as the light changed, then raced through the intersection. Not far now. 

There it was… and, to his relief, there she was, too, sitting on the curb, legs dangling inside a parking space in front of the convenience store, hands withdrawn into her sweater to combat the surprising chill of the summer night air. 

He didn’t bother parking normally… it was too late for anybody to be inconvenienced, and the lot was empty. He just screeched to a stop and climbed out. His sister looked up. “Heyyyy!” she called out. “It’s Sir Dippingsauce! My hero!" She pushed herself to her feet, then took an unsteady step, swaying, and it looked like she might fall over.

Dipper grabbed her, and she pulled him in for a hug. He hugged back. "You’re drunk,” he said, although that wasn’t news. He could hear her slurring her words on the phone. But it was still a surprise.

“Just a _teensy_ bit,” Mabel said. Judging by the smell of her breath, it was more than a teensy bit, there was alcohol and puke there. 

That she’d had a little to drink was surprising, but not unheard of. Dipper and Mabel got drunk for the first time together, years ago, as an experiment, and neither claimed to particularly like it, but they’d tried it a couple more times since. From those experiences, he knew that though they were twins, they had different reactions when they drank too much. When Dipper did, all his memories got blurry and disjointed. Things got broken, and Mabel told him it happened when he was trying to do stupid things. Mabel mostly got sillier, often really giggly… but she also got sleepy and sick, particularly when she moved around. Of course, few people avoided alcohol entirely just because of the negative effects… Dipper drank a couple of times to fit in with friends and, he assumed, so did Mabel, although they’d stopped doing it together, and Dipper, at least, never let himself get _totally_ drunk. 

“You’re okay, though?” he asked, just to be sure. She looked okay, if you ignored the smell and the spacey look in her eyes. She nodded eagerly though, too eagerly, and then put one hand to her head and her other out, as though the world was spinning and she was trying to get it to stop. 

After a couple faltering attempts at grabbing onto thin air, she managed to get a hold of Dipper’s shirt. “I just wish the world would slow down a little." She let out a long breath, and then said, "I’m missing the movie.”

“I know,” Dipper said, and then scowled. “I can’t believe they just _left_ you here." He started directing her in the direction of the car. 

She shrugged. "It’s not as bad as it sounds.”

“Yes, it is." He never liked those girls… every community had them, the popular girls who would, occasionally, pretend to be nice to you for a short time only to tear you down later. And his sister always seemed to fall for it, because she saw the best in people.

"No, it _isn’t_ ,” she insisted. “They made sure I had my phone and that I had money for a cab!" Dipper wondered for a moment why, if she had cab money, she called him, but before he could ask, she said, "It’s just Dakota didn’t want me throwing up in her car and I was feeling pretty dizzy." She let out a little burp and said, "It sucks that I’m going to miss the movie though.”

“It’s no big deal." He walked her towards the car. "Let’s go home.”

Mabel stopped suddenly, and since he was holding on her arm, he had to as well. “Wait! We can’t yet!" She said it like it she’d just remembered the most important thing in the world. "We have to say goodbye to my new friend." She pointed to the dour-looking man inside the convenience store, then broke free of Dipper’s tentative grasp and ran for the brightly-lit doors. 

"Goodbye Rudolph,” she yelled far too enthusiastically. “Thank you for that awesome slushy, and for telling me those stories about your homeland Ruritania!" At least that’s what Dipper thought she called it, her voice kind of wobbled and gave some false starts when she tried to say it. Rudolph just stared at her and Mabel’s animated face fell into an almost comic look of shame. "Sorry about your floors." His silence continued. "Okay, bye then,” she repeated weakly, and withdrew, and this time, finally allowed Dipper to guide her to the car. 

They rode in silence for a block or two and Mabel stared down at her hands. “Thank you for coming to get me, broseph.”

“Anytime Mabel… I just…” He hesitated, not sure he wanted to get into it, but he wanted to know. “I just don’t get it, you’re not exactly a… boozehound." It was the first word that came to mind. 

She laughed, a sudden one that sounded a little like a bark. " _Booze_ hound.”

At times like these, he could almost read her mind… she was picturing some kind of comically tipsy cartoon dog. He tried to suppress a smile, and continued, “I just don’t get why you’d get falling down drunk… on the way to a movie.”

“Hey, I only fell down _once_! And that wasn’t my fault, my shoes started wobbling." She puffed up her cheeks and tilted her head. "I was a victim of peer pressure. Rayanne brought the vodka, and suggested we play a game of _‘Truth or Drink’_.”

“Isn’t it _'Truth or Dare?’_ ”

“No, _'Drink!'_ It’s a get-to-know-you game.”

“How could you lose that? You’re an open book, Mabel. You have, like, no secrets.”

“I have secrets,” she said, a tinge of what almost sounded like sadness in her voice, and then she dropped into an unnecessary whisper and added, “ _Dark_ secrets.”

Right. “You announced to the whole cafeteria when you got your first real bra.”

“Well, _excuse_ me for having pride in my body!”

“When Mom got laid off before Christmas you put it on Facebook.”

“I was _networking_ for her!”

“You have a special sweater for when you’re starting that time of the month!" Okay, in fairness, she didn’t wear it every time, and Dipper thought only close friends and family had figured out what it meant.

She pouted. "You could just appreciate the warning like everyone else.”

“I’m just saying, you share _a lot_ that people wouldn’t. What questions could they come up with that would make you keep drinking instead of just answering?”

“Just _one_ question, but we were on round four…" She held up three fingers. "So I had to take four drinkies for not answering.”

“So what was this four-drink question?”

“They asked who I most wanted to… most wanted to…" Her head shook, as though she was trying to clear the thought. "Who I had the biggest crush on.”

Dipper frowned and clutched the steering wheel just a little more tightly. “So? You’re not _that_ mysterious. Everybody already knows it’s Justin." It was so obvious it should have been a round one question, if it even rated a question at all. The guy was good looking, rich, on the basketball team… it seemed like half the girls in school had a crush on him. Dipper disliked the guy on general principle, and, he would insist, not at all out of jealousy… Justin was one of those guys who, when he had a girlfriend, usually had a girl on the side. But more often he kept himself free to hook up randomly at parties. And the prospect of his sister dating him turned the dislike into hate. The guy was just a jerk. Mabel, he knew, could do a lot better, and he tried to tell her at every time she mentioned him.

She didn’t answer, and he looked over to her. Her eyes were wide, shiny, and on him. She shook her head and bit her lip. 

"What? _Not_ Justin?" That was a relief… at least, maybe… it was hard to believe she didn’t like him, she seemed to bring him up _all_ the time. "Or what, did it include _celebrity_ crushes? Did you not want to admit your love for _Ducktective_?" She didn’t laugh, or even smile, at Dipper’s joke, just soberly shook her head again. "So who was it?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“I’m your brother, you can tell me anything.”

Her head shook again. “Not this." Her eyes seemed to glisten so much he wondered if she was about to cry. 

"Why not? How bad could it be?" How bad _COULD_ it be? Somebody else’s boyfriend? Dipper could see Mabel lying to hide that, but not to him. Maybe it was one of Dipper’s own friends? She might want to hide that, but he hoped she could trust him not to blab. No, if she hid it from him, it had to be really embarrassing, or dark. 

"You wouldn’t understand.”

What wouldn’t he understand? A teacher? Or maybe some other adult in her life? THAT she might hide, because Dipper would tell somebody, if not kill the guy himself, at least if it was anything other than a one-sided crush. Or maybe it wasn’t so bad. Maybe it was a girl. Could it be? He knew Mabel well enough to know that she wasn’t faking her boy-crazy tendencies, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t _also_ like girls. Maybe she was crushing on a girl, and _thought_ he would judge. He wouldn’t, he loved her no matter what, and there was nothing even a little wrong with it anyway. “Whoever it is, Mabel, I’d understand. If you don’t want to tell me the name, that’s fine, but don’t say it’s because I wouldn’t understand.”

“Dipper,” she said, and that was all. He thought she was going to tell him, so he waited. “Dipper,” she said again. He let it lie unanswered one more second, and then before he could prompt her, she said again, “Dipper, I think I’m going to throw up again. Can you pull over?”

His tires almost squealed as he pulled to the side of the road, undid his seatbelt and rushed to the other side of the car to help her out. She clung to him with one arm as she made her way to the curb, then fell to her knees. Dipper crouched beside her and held her hair back so she wouldn’t get any puke in it… but, although she retched a few times, her stomach much have been almost empty. Nothing came out, and after a minute she put her hand on his knee and used it to help her turn herself around. “I’m okay. False alarm.”

“You sure?" 

She nodded, swallowed. "Just… need a second." She sat on the curb, and Dipper sat beside her. "Remind me never to drink _ever_ again. At least not on round four." 

"If you didn’t want to, I don’t see why you couldn’t have just lied, made someone up…”

She sounded scandalized. “Dipper! That would violate the sacred sanctity of the Truth game!" He rolled his eyes, but suppressed a smile at her innocent sincerity. With a worldview like that, her secret couldn’t be _that_ dark. A scandalous affair with a teacher or drug dealer had to be out. 

She went quiet for a moment, laid her head on his shoulder, and then out of the blue, said, again, "I’m missing the movie.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll take you to another showing. But for now, let’s get you to bed so you can sleep this off.” He tried to gently guide her to her feet, although he was ready to give in if she didn’t feel stable. 

“You don’t even like the _Wolfman_ movies,” Mabel argued, but allowed him to help her up.

“They’re not _that_ bad. I watched _Wolfman Bare Bones_ on Netflix and there were some moments that weren’t completely awful." Only mostly. That was the second, tonight was the opening night of the third, _Wolfman Bare Your Soul_ … there were something like forty in the book series. "I’ll take you tomorrow, if you want." 

"Tomorrow’s Saturday,” she said. “You have _work_.”

He opened the passenger side of the door wide enough for Mabel to get back in. “Not anymore." 

She pulled his shirt so he’d face her. "You lost your _job_ to come get me?” she realized.

Suddenly unwilling to meet her eye, Dipper shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”

“Oh, _Dipper_ …." She wrapped her arms around him, embracing him in a bearhug. When she pulled away, her eyes were damp with moisture… this time she really was crying. "I’m so sorry, I _never_ wanted that…”

“It’s no big deal,” he repeated. “I _wanted_ to quit anyway, I just never had a good excuse.”

“Dad’s going to freak.”

“Freak at _me?_ If he sees _you_ , all sloshed, he’ll freak." Which raised a good point. "In fact, maybe we _shouldn’t_ go home right away.”

“Where would we go?”

“I don’t know, we could just find somewhere to park…”

Mabel thrust her hand to her face to stifle a giggle. “You want to _park_ with me?”

He ignored her, and continued, “Let you sleep it off. Mom and Dad are usually asleep by the time my shift ends, and you’re supposed to be sleeping over _anyway_ …" If Mabel was a little more sober by then, she could sneak into bed and nobody at home would ever see her drunk. Hung over, maybe, but you could cover that better. 

"Okay.”

Dipper closed the front door and opened the back instead. “Here, you’ll be more comfortable here, you can lie down." 

Mabel sat down and stretched her arms out for her brother when he stood on the other side of the door. "You can come into the back seat with me, if you want!”

“There’s not enough room for both of us to sleep there." At least, not comfortably. He could take the floor. "Besides, I have to drive.” This wasn’t a good place to take an in-car nap, and they weren’t even properly parked.

“Oh. Okay." She tucked her legs in, allowed him to close the door, and then stretched herself out as best she could, lying on her side across the back seats and closed her eyes. Dipper got in the driver’s seat, turned the key, and started them moving. 

"Let me know if you need to puke again or something,” he said, and watched her reflection in the mirror as she nodded. 

He didn’t drive far, just found a parking lot for a bakery that was closed for the night and would be safe to hang out for a couple hours. Once parked, he turned off the ignition, and then checked on his sister in the rear view mirror. She hadn’t spoken for a while, and assumed she’d fallen asleep, and that allowed the thought out, the one he usually kept buttoned up just in case the twin telepathy they once developed, during that one adventure back during that first crazy summer they were in Gravity Falls, spontaneously came back. _God, she’s beautiful._ Even asleep, drunk, smelling of booze and a little bit of vomit, she looked like an angel. 

She stirred, and Dipper’s heart thumped, insanely convinced for one moment that she heard the thought. “You still here, Dipper?" So she was awake, though she sounded like she could drift off, or back, to sleep at any moment. 

"Yeah,” he said. He adjusted the seat so he could lean back. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to leave you alone.”

“I know. You’re too good to me, Dipper." She yawned. "That’s why I could never do it to you.”

“Do what?”

“Tell you. It’s not that I don’t trust you, it’s just… it would be _too_ weird.”

“What?” he asked, although he thought he knew. The name of the guy she liked. Maybe it was a friend after all. 

Her next words confirmed it. “Who I want to… want to…" Her eyes were already closed, but they squeezed even more shut, and her legs shuffled as she curled up into a ball. 

"It’s okay, Mabel. Maybe one day you’ll tell me,” he said. Or maybe he’ll figure out on his own. “You don’t have to until you’re ready.”

“Oh, I don’t think I’ll _ever_ be ready." Her voice was growing weaker, and harder to understand… not only was she drunk, the side of her mouth was scraping right up against the upholstery with every word. "I just have to hope that sooner or later I’ll get _over_ these crazy feelings for you.”

He stared at her in the mirror for a long time, too stunned to even really think. All he could do was wait for her to correct an accidental ungrammatical sentence, or say something else that would shed more light… but she never did. Soon, Mabel’s breath began to rise and fall with the particular, unfakeable rhythm of deep sleep, leaving Dipper only with questions and the memory of a revelation that seemed too good to be true. No, he heard her wrong. It was just drunk talk, a misunderstood word. That was the _only_ thing that made sense. There was a far more logical explanation for what she really meant, and he lay back in his chair, looking at all cakes in the bakery window, savoring the sweet fantasy that she might have said anything else for one moment before finally letting it go. He wasn’t _that_ lucky. So he knew what she _really_ must have said, who she really liked.

Even though he still couldn’t figure out why his sister would hide her new crush from him. After all, he couldn’t even think of _anybody_ in their lives named Hugh. Certainly nobody in any of their classes. So why bother hiding it? But that was the only name that seemed to match the drunk talk, and some mystery student Dipper had never heard of… well, that was less impossible than the alternative. Maybe it was a freshman. 

_Whoever_ he was, he was a lucky guy. Dipper envied him. 

**The End**


End file.
